History of Bottle Mate

Paul Gagnon retired as a merchant marine ship captain. In 1970 he started his own company named Port-O-Clamp to produce several of his inventions. He created various tools and replacement parts in the ship yards and on seagoing vessels. While at home one day, he saw the need for a way to move those heavy, cumbersome 5 gallon glass water bottles.

In 1971 in his backyard, he cast his first BOTTLE MATE handle with casting sand, his handmade wax prototype, and molten aluminum.

That led to having the molds made for sand cast aluminum Bottle Mate handle production.

He also developed production on another great aluminum tool called BOTTLE TOTE which is a great tool for grabbing the wire or plastic 6 pack crates which many bottles were delivered in.

In 1985 Paul ceased production of the aluminum BOTTLE MATE & BOTTLE TOTE only to begin production of the new BOTTLE MATE 2 which was made of much lighter and less expensive plastics. What a hit! The BOTTLE MATE 2 has been sold worldwide since then.

The late 1990’s saw many requests for a larger handgrip because many of the delivery drivers are big men with sizeable hands. While Paul Gagnon had since passed away, he did leave behind a wooden prototype of just that, a larger handgrip! In 2001 we had the molds made for the new BMXL handle.

In 2010 we modified the handgrip to the large comfort grip you see today.

2016 sees the launch of the new Bottle Mate XL-ORNG. It has the same large handgrip as the XL-BLU but is sized to fit the PET bottles. The safety orange color has an added benefit. Fewer lost handles.